Pranic Healing is a biofield therapy established in China thousands of years ago but rediscovered and reformulated in recent times by Mei Ling and his student Master Choa Kok Sui. Practitioners believe that they are able to tap into what is termed prana or Qi, the universal force, and to use this energy to promote or enhance healing.

The objective of our long-term program is to critically evaluate Pranic Healing in a laboratory setting using rigorous mainstream scientific methods. In an initial study (presented at the 20th Annual Meeting of the SSE, June 7-9, 2001, La Jolla, CA), we investigated possible mediation effects of Pranic Healing on HeLa cells in culture subjected to gamma radiation. In a preliminary set of 70 experiments using 4 different healers we found that Pranic Healing could indeed significantly enhance the survival rate of cells subjected to radiation.

Here we report on a far more extensive study involving some 854 single experiments using ten different individual Pranic Healers. Several studies also involved groups of healers. In experiments using a single Pranic Healer, typical survival rates increased from an expected 50% to over 90% for cells treated both before and after radiation. The distance between the healer and the cells proved unimportant. Shielding the cells and the healer from electromagnetic and gamma radiation had no effect on the results. The experience of the healer proved to be slightly important. Experiments involving a group of Pranic Healers, suggests that group healing enhances the desired effect. Even though these results are remarkable, healers produced no effect whatever in about 12% of the total runs. Although the reasons for these failures are not fully understood, further experimentation indicates that appropriate preparation of the laboratory space is essential to produce a significant outcome. That is, poorer results are seen in a dirty environment. In a conditioned laboratory, the experiments were successful 88% of the time. In an unconditioned lab the success rate was only 10% while no experiments were successful in a dirty laboratory. These observations may well explain the lack of repeatability of many subtle energy experiments.

These findings are difficult to explain in terms of a Newtonian physics world view, which serves as the basis for contemporary biology and Western medicine; however, the data seem consistent with a quantum mechanical world view.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)

Joie P. Jones, PhD. Department of Radiological Sciences, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA.

For more information: www.scientificexploration.org (less info)